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Public culture

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public culture

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Public culture : bulletin of the Project for Transnational Cultural Studies.

ARTICLE TITLE:

Fortified Enclaves: The new urban segregation

ARTICLE AUTHOR:

teresa cladeira

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ISSUE:
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YEAR:

1996

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303-328

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0899-2363

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NX180.S6 P8

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319272

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Architecture and Environmental Design

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System Date/Time: 5/4/2007 1:39:00 PM MST

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F o rtifie d E n cla ve s: T h e N e w
U rb a n S e g re g a tio n
Teresa P. R. Caldeira

n the last few decades, the proliferation of fortified enclaves has created a new
model of spatial segregation and transformed the quality of public life in many
cities around the world. Fortified enclaves are privatized, enclosed, and monitored
spaces for residence, consumption, leisure, and work. The fear of violence is
one of their main justifications. They appeal to those who are abandoning the
traditional public sphere of the streets to the poor, the marginal, and the home
less. In cities fragmented by fortified enclaves, it is difficult to maintain the
principles of openness and free circulation which have been among the most
significant organizing values of modem cities. As a consequence, the character
of public space and of citizens participation in public life changes.
In order to sustain these arguments, this article analyzes the case of Sao Paulo,
Brazil, and uses Los Angeles as a comparison. Sao Paulo is the largest metropoli
tan region (it has more than sixteen million inhabitants) of a society with one of
the most inequitable distributions of wealth in the world.1 In Sao Paulo, social
inequality is obvious. As a consequence, processes of spatial segregation are also

This article is based on the analysis developed in my book City of Walls: Crime, Segregation,
and Citizenship in S&o Paulo (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming), copyright by
the Regents of the University of California. I thank the University of California Press for the permission
to use material from the book.
1.
In Brazil in 1989, the proportion of income in the hands of the poorest 50% of the population
was only 10.4%. At the same time, the richest 1% had 17.3% of the income. Data is from the
National Research by Domicile Sample (PNAD) undertaken by the Census Bureau. The distribution
of wealth has become more inequitable since the early 1980s (Lopes 1993; Rocha 1991).
Public Culture 1996, 8: 303-328
1996 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0899-2363/96/0802-0006S01.00

303

particularly visible, expressed without disguise or subtlety. Sometimes, to look

at an exaggerated form of a process is a way of throwing light onto some of its
characteristics which might otherwise go unnoticed. It is like looking at a carica
ture. In fact, with its high walls and fences, armed guards, technologies of surveil
lance, and contrasts of ostentatious wealth and extreme poverty, contemporary
Sao Paulo reveals with clarity a new pattern of segregation which is widespread
in cities throughout the world, although generally in less severe and explicit forms.
In what follows, I start by describing the changes in Sao Paulos pattern of
spatial segregation which have occurred in the last fifteen years. I show, then,
how the fortified enclaves became status symbols and instruments of social separa
tion and suggest their similarities with other enclaves around the world. I examine
Los Angeles as an example to illustrate both the type of architectural design and
urban planning which the enclaves use and evaluate the effects of this design.
Finally, I discuss how the new public space and the social interactions generated
by the new pattern of urban segregation may relate to experiences of citizenship
and democracy.
Building Up Walls: Sao Paulo's Recent Transformations

The forms producing segregation in city space are historically variable. From
the 1940s to the 1980s, a division between center and periphery organized the
space of Sao Paulo, where great distances separated different social groups; the
middle and upper classes lived in central and well-equipped neighborhoods and
the poor lived in the precarious hinterland.2 In the last fifteen years, however,
a combination of processes, some of them similar to those affecting other cities,
deeply transformed the pattern of distribution of social groups and activities
throughout the city. Sao Paulo continues to be a highly segregated city, but the
way in which inequalities are inscribed into urban space has changed considerably.
In the 1990s, the physical distances separating rich and poor have decreased at
the same time that the mechanisms to keep them apart have become more obvious
and more complex.
The urban changes which occurred in the 1980s and 1990s in Sao Paulo, and
the new pattern of spatial segregation they generated, cannot be separated from
four different processes which became intertwined during this period. First, the
1980s and early 1990s were years of economic recession, with very high rates
2.
For an analysis of the various patterns of urban segregation in Sao Paulo from the late nineteenth
century to the present, see Caldeira (n.d.a and n.d.b).

of inflation and increasing poverty. The 1980s are known in Brazil and in Latin
America as the lost decade. Contrary to the miracle years of the 1970s,
economic growth was very low, the gross national product dropped 5.5% during
the 1980s, unemployment rose, and inflation went up dramatically. For several
years after the mid-1980s, inflation was higher than 1,000% a year, and successive
economic plans to deal with it failed.3 After a decade of inflation, unemployment,
and recession, poverty has grown to alarming dimensions. Recent research shows
that the effects of the economic crisis were especially severe for the poor popula
tion and aggravated the already iniquitous distribution of wealth in Brazil (Rocha
1991; Lopes 1993).4
This process of impoverishment has had serious consequences for the position
of the poor in urban space. The periphery of the city became unaffordable for
the poorest. Since the 1940s, the working classes had been building their own
houses in the periphery of the city in a process called autoconstruction (see
Caldeira 1984; Holston 1991). In this process, they bought cheap lots in distant
areas of the city without any infrastructure and services, and frequently involving
some illegality, and spent decades building their dream houses and improving
their neighborhoods. In this way, they both constructed their homes and expanded
the city. However, their generally successful efforts to improve the quality of
life in the periphery through the organization of social movements-which I
discuss belowoccurred at a moment when the economic crisis denied upcoming
generations of workers the same possibility of becoming homeowners, even in
precarious and distant areas of town. Consequently, the poorest population had
to move either to favelas and cortiqos in the central areas of town, or to distant
municipalities in the metropolitan region.5 According to a recent study by the
office of Sao Paulos Secretary of Housing, residents in favelas represented 1.1%
of the citys population in 1973, 2.2% in 1980, 8.8% in 1987, and 19.4% in
1993that is, 1,902,000 people in 1993 (O Estado de S. Paulo, 15 October
1994, C-l).
3. As I write, in June of 1995, inflation has been low at around 2.5% a month for one year, as
a consequence of the Plano Real, the most successful plan so far to fight inflation. This plan was
elaborated by ex-Minister of Treasury Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who was elected president of
Brazil on the basis of the success of this plan.
4. Although the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo has one of the best situations in Brazil, the
Gini coefficient increased from 0.516 in 1981 to 0.566 in 1989 (Rocha 1991:38). The Gini coefficient
varies from zero to one. It would be zero if all people had the same income, and one if one person
concentrated the whole national income. For Brazil, the Gini coefficient was 0.580 in 1985 and 0.627
in 1989 (Rocha 1991:38).
5. A favela is a set of shacks built on seized land. A cortiqo is a type of tenement housing.

305
Fortified Enclaves

306
Public Culture

Second, these changes during the 1980s accompanied the consolidation of a

democratic government in Brazil after twenty-one years of military rule. On the
one hand, elections were held peacefully, regularly, and fairly, and political
parties organized freely. On the other hand, trade unions and all types of social
movements emerged onto the political scene, bringing the working classes and
dominated groups to the center of politics and transforming the relationship be
tween politicians and citizens. This is not a small achievement in a country with
a tradition of high social inequality, elitism, and authoritarianism. Tliis process
of democratic consolidation has had many consequences and limits (see Caldeira
andHolston 1995). It is important to note the consequences of this process in terms
of the urban environment. Since the mid-1970s, social movements organized by
homeowners associations in the periphery have pressured local administrations
both to improve the infrastructure and services in their neighborhoods and to
legalize their land. Combined with changes in political groups in office brought
about by free elections, this pressure transformed the priorities of local administra
tion, making the periphery the site of much investment in the urban infrastructure.
Moreover, during two decades of land disputes, social movements forced munici
pal governments to offer various amnesties to illegal developers, which resulted
in the regularization of lots and their insertion into the formal land market.
However, these new achievements also diminished the supply of irregular and
cheap lots on the market. Since legal developments and lots in areas with a better
infrastructure are obviously more expensive than illegal lots in underdeveloped
areas, it is not difficult to understand that the neighborhoods which achieved
these improvements came to be out of the reach of the already impoverished
population, who were therefore pushed into favelas and cortigos.
Third, during the 1980s, Sao Paulos economic activities started to be restruc
tured. Following the same pattern of many metropolises around the world, Sao
Paulo is under a process of expansion of tertiary activities or tertiarization. In
the last decade, the city lost its position as the largest industrial pole of the country
to other areas of the state and to the Metropolitan Region as a whole, becoming
basically a center of finance, commerce, and the coordination of productive
activities and specialized services-in a pattern similar to what is happening in
the so-called global cities (Sassen 1991). This process has various consequences
for the urban environment. The oldest industrial areas of the city are going
through combined processes of deterioration and gentrification. In some of them,
especially in districts in the inner part of town where various sectors of the middle
classes live, abandoned houses and factories were transformed into cortigos.
Concomitantly, both the opening of new avenues and of a subway line in the

eastern zone gei

buildings for the
condominiums d
the displacemem
the periphery, es
region. The new
service centers v
spaces of comm
isolated areas of
to homeless peo;
Finally, the f<
of urban residen
increase in violei
but, more import
Violent crime in
in the early 198
people in Sao P
violence in Sao I
police killed moi
son in any othei
fear comes with
protection. Thes
dence and circul
use of streets and
to changes in all
As a result, 5
constructed ever
office complexes
be connected to
6. Violent crime
clear in the United 2
1960 and 1990, acco
American cities wer
in Washington, D.C
Angeles Times, 25 >
7. In 1992, Sao
inside the citys mair
police killed 24 civil
in violence and crin

ne consolidation of a
imilitary rule. On the
j fairly, and political
|nd all types of social
I working classes and
g the relationship be|ent in a country with
panism. This process
p limits (see Caldeira
If this process in terms
lements organized by
Mocal administrations
pighborhoods and to
lups in office brought
ps of local administraiurban infrastructure,
its forced municirs, which resulted
rmal land market,
ily' of irregular and
areas with a better
in underdeveloped
s which achieved
y impoverished
wtiqos.
started to be restrucound the world, Sao
i or tertiarization. In
tl pole of the country
$ a whole, becoming
Jation of productive
hat is happening in
rious consequences
the city are going
n. In some of them,
ectors of the middle
jrmed into cortiqos.
subway line in the

eastern zone generated urban renewal and the construction of new apartment
buildings for the middle classes, some of which conform to the model of closed
condominiums discussed below. The most recent process, however, concerns
the displacement of services and commerce from the inner city to districts on
the periphery, especially to the western and southern zones of the metropolitan
region. The new tertiary jobs are located in recently built, enormous office and
service centers which have multiplied in the last fifteen years. At the same time,
spaces of commerce are changing as immense shopping malls are created in
isolated areas of the old periphery, and as some old shopping areas are abandoned
to homeless people and street vendors.
Finally, the fourth process of change relates most directly to the new pattern
of urban residential segregation because it supplies the justifying rhetoric: the
increase in violent crime and fear. Crime has been increasing since the mid-1980s
but, more importantly, there has been a qualitative change in the pattern of crime.
Violent crime in the 1990s represents about 30% of all crime, compared to 20%
in the early 1980s. Murder rates in the 1990s are higher than 35 per 100,000
people in Sao Paulo.6 However, the most serious element in the increase of
violence in Sao Paulo is police violence. In the early 1990s, Sao Paulos military
police killed more than 1,000 suspects per year, a number which has no compari
son in any other city in the world.7 The increase in violence, insecurity, and
fear comes with a series of transformations, as citizens adopt new strategies of
protection. These strategies are changing the citys landscape, patterns of resi
dence and circulation, everyday trajectories, habits, and gestures related to the
use of streets and of public transportation. In sum, the fear of crime is contributing
to changes in all types of public interactions.
As a result, Sao Paulo is today a city of walls. Physical barriers have been
constructed everywherearound houses, apartment buildings, parks, squares,
office complexes, and schools. Apartment buildings and houses which used to
be connected to the street by gardens are now everywhere separated by high
6. Violent crime has been growing in various metropolises around the world. This is especially
clear in the United States, where the number of violent crimes per capita grew by 355% between
1960 and 1990, according to FBI reports. In 1990, rates of murder per 100,000 population in several
American cities were higher than or comparable to those of Sao Paulo. The highest rate was 77.8
in Washington, D.C. It was 36.0 in Miami, 30.6 in New York City, and 28.2 in Los Angeles {Los
Angeles Times, 25 March 1992: A-14).
7. In 1992, Sao Paulos military police killed 1,470 civilians, including 111 prisoners killed
inside the citys main prison. In that year, Los Angeles police killed 25 civilians, and the New York
police killed 24 civilians. For a complete analysis of the pattern of police violence and of the increase
in violence and crime in Sao Paulo, see Caldeira (n.d.a).

307
Fortified Enclaves

308
Public Culture

fences and walls, and guarded by electronic devices and armed security men.
The new additions frequently look odd because they were improvised in spaces
conceived without them, spaces designed to be open. However, these barriers are
now fully integrated into new projects for individual houses, apartment buildings,
shopping areas, and work spaces. A new aesthetics of security shapes all types
of constructions and imposes its new logic of surveillance and distance as a means
for displaying status, and is changing the character of public life and public
interactions.
Among the diverse elements changing the city, the new enclaves for residence,
work, and consumption of the middle and upper classes are provoking the deepest
transformations. Although they have different uses and many specializations
(some for residence, others for work, leisure, or consumption; some more re
stricted, others more open), all types of fortified enclaves share some basic charac
teristics. They are private property for collective use; they are physically isolated,
either by walls or empty spaces or other design devices; they are turned inwards
and not to the street; and they are controlled by armed guards and security systems
which enforce rules of inclusion and exclusion. Moreover, these enclaves are
very flexible arrangements. Due to their size, the new technologies of communica
tion, the new organization of work, and security systems, they possess all that
is needed within a private and autonomous space and can be situated almost
anywhere, independent of the surroundings. In fact, most of them have been
placed in the old periphery and have as their neighbors either favelas or concentra
tions of autoconstructed houses. Finally, the enclaves tend to be socially homoge
neous environments, mostly for the middle and upper classes.
Fortified enclaves represent a new alternative for the urban life of these middle
and upper classes. As such, they are codified as something conferring high status.
The construction of status symbols is a process which elaborates social distance
and creates means for the assertion of social difference and inequality. In the
next section, I examine real estate advertisements as one way of analyzing this
process for the case of Sao Paulos enclaves. After that, I analyze the characteris
tics of the enclaves that make them an urban form which creates segregation and
reproduces social inequality while transforming the character of public life.

Advertising Segregated Enclaves for the Rich

Real estate advertisements tell us about the lifestyles of the middle and upper
classes and reveal the elements which constitute current patterns of social differ
entiation. The ads not only reveal a new code of social distinction, but also

explicitly treat:
following interp
closed condomii
1975 and 1995.
capturing the in
and to highlight
their place in so
twenty years, tl
concept of resid
tion, homogene
the highest statu
nity, a secure e
and live only ar
which one can re
environment an
image of the eru
rated world pen
sion and mixtui
Closed cond
ments propose i
quality of life <
suggest the pos
surrounding cit
but they are supj
for it; thus the
which transforn
inside of closed
rooms, from ba
In addition t
wide range of se
mentioned in tin
childrens recre
gardening, pet
housekeeping a
transportation,
your dreams, d
8. Expressions

irmed security men.

mprovised in spaces
?er, these barriers are
japartment buildings,
rity shapes all types
jl distance as a means
Jblic life and public
r

claves for residence,

revoking the deepest
lany specializations
don; some more reiesome basic charac;i physically isolated,
/ are turned inwards
and security systems
, these enclaves are
)gies ofcommunicahey possess all that
be situated almost
l of them have been
iavelas or concentra
te socially homogetes.
i life of these middle
nferring high status,
rates social distance
d inequality. In the
ay of analyzing this
(yze the characteris
es segregation and
er of public life.

; middle and upper

ferns of social differlistinction, but also

explicitly treat separation, isolation, and protection as a matter of status. The

following interpretation is based on the analysis of real estate advertisements for
closed condominiums published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo between
1975 and 1995. I analyze the advertisements in order to try to discover what is
capturing the imagination and desires of Sao Paulos middle and upper classes
and to highlight some of the main images they are using in order to construct
their place in society. I am particularly interested in uncovering how, in the last
twenty years, the advertisements elaborated the myth of what they call a new
concept of residence on the basis of the articulation of images of security, isola
tion, homogeneity, facilities, and services.81 argue that the image which confers
the highest status and is most seductive is that of an enclosed and isolated commu
nity, a secure environment in which one can use various facilities and services
and live only among equals. The advertisements present the image of islands to
which one can return every day, in order to escape from the city and its deteriorated
environment and to encounter an exclusive world of pleasure among peers. The
image of the enclaves, therefore, is opposed to the image of the city as a deterio
rated world pervaded by not only pollution and noise but more importantly confu
sion and mixture, that is, social heterogeneity.
Closed condominiums are supposed to be separate worlds. Their advertise
ments propose a total way of life which would represent an alternative to the
quality of life offered by the city and its deteriorated public space. The ads
suggest the possibility of constructing a world clearly distinguishable from the
surrounding city: a life of total calm and security. Condominiums are distant,
but they are supposed to be as independent and complete as possible to compensate
for it; thus the emphasis on the common facilities they are supposed to have
which transform them into sophisticated clubs. In these ads, the facilities promised
inside of closed condominiums seem to be unlimitedfrom drugstores to tanning
rooms, from bars and saunas to ballet rooms, from swimming pools to libraries.
In addition to common facilities, Sao Paulos closed condominiums offer a
wide range of services. The following are some of the services (excluding security)
mentioned in the advertisements: psychologists and gymnastic teachers to manage
childrens recreation, classes of all sorts for all ages, organized sports, libraries,
gardening, pet care, physicians, message centers, frozen food preparation,
housekeeping administration, cooks, cleaning personnel, drivers, car washing,
transportation, and servants to do the grocery shopping. If the list does not meet
your dreams, do not worry, for everything you might demand can be made
8. Expressions in quotation marks are taken from the advertisements.

309
Fortified Enclaves

310
Public Culture

available. The expansion of domestic service is not a feature of Brazil alone. As

Sassen (1991, chapters 1 and 8) shows for the case of global cities, high-income
gentrification requires an increase in low-wage jobs; yuppies and poor migrant
workers depend on each other. In Sao Paulo, however, the intensive use of
domestic labor is a continuation of an old pattern, although in recent years some
relationships of labor have been altered, and this work has become more profes
sional.
The multiplication of new services creates problems, including the spatial
allocation of service areas. The solutions for this problem vary, but one of the
most emblematic concerns the circulation areas. Despite many recent changes,
the separation between two entrancesin buildings and in each individual apartment-and two elevators, one labeled social and the other service-seems to
be untouchable; different classes are not supposed to mix or interact in the public
areas of the buildings.9 Sometimes, the insistence on this distinction seems ridicu
lous, because the two elevators or doors are often placed side-by-side, instead
of being in distinct areas. As space shrinks, and the side-by-side solution spreads,
the apartments which have totally separate areas of circulation advertise this fact
with the phrase, social hall independent from service hall. The idea is old:
class separation as a form of distinction.
Another problem faced by the new developments is the control of a large
number of servants. As the number of workers for each condominium increases,
as many domestic jobs change their character, and as creative services prolifer
ate for middle and upper classes who cannot do without them, so also the mecha
nisms of control diversify. The creative administrations of the new enclaves
in many cases take care of labor management, and are in a position to impose
strict forms of control which would create impossible daily relationships if adopted
in the more personal interaction between domestic servants and the families who
employ them. This more professional control is, therefore, a new service and is
advertised as such. The basic method of control is direct and involves empowering
some workers to control others. In various condominiums, both employees of
the condominium and maids and cleaning workers of individual apartments (even
those who live there) are required to show their identification tags to go in and
out of the condominium. Often they and their personal belongings are searched
when they leave work. Moreover, this control usually involves men exercising
power over women.
9. See Holston 1989 for an analysis of this system of spatial separation in Brasilia.

The middle an
freedomboth fr<
tic taskson the
to badly paid wo:
of their condomin
bureaucratic prob
to transporting inc
who often live in
wash and iron th<
frequently care fc
crime in which th
fear contact and <
They can only be
these servants, wii
and avoidance, in
Another featur
city, a fact which
latter is expressec
(green areas, par
discourses. Howe
tion from those co
this is security,
guards on duty tv
of facilities and s
telephones, doubl
streets. Total se<
and control are th
isolation but also1
security exclusive
in various types o
protection from c
of exclusion is ca
The elaboratio
on the basis of bui
occurring elsewhe
are not unique to
Sao Paulo elaborj
campaign to sell I

i)f Brazil alone. As

cities, high-income
; and poor migrant
intensive use of
recent years some
come more profes-

cluding the spatial

hry, but one of the
iny recent changes,
iih individual apartherviceseems to
Iteract in the public
jction seems ridicute-by-side, instead
t solution spreads,
advertise this fact
" The idea is old:

control of a large
minium increases,
services prolifer;so also the mechathe new enclaves
Josition to impose
fcnships if adopted
the families who
: tew service and is
i Ives empowering
>th employees of
apartments (even
i tags to go in and
i ngs are searched
i s men exercising

l Brasilia.

The middle and upper classes are creating their dream of independence and
freedomboth from the city and its mixture of classes, and from everyday domes
tic taskson the basis of services from working-class people. They give guns
to badly paid working-class guards to control their own movement in and out
of their condominiums. They ask their badly paid office-boys to solve all their
bureaucratic problems, from paying their bills and standing in all types of lines
to transporting incredible sums of money. They also ask their badly paid maids
who often live in the favelas on the other side of the condominiums wall-to
wash and iron their clothes, make their beds, buy and prepare their food, and
frequently care for their children all day long. In a context of increased fear of
crime in which the poor are often associated with criminality, the upper classes
fear contact and contamination, but they continue to depend on their servants.
They can only be anxious about creating the most effective way of controlling
these servants, with whom they have such ambiguous relationships of dependency
and avoidance, intimacy and distrust.
Another feature of closed condominiums is isolation and distance from the
city, a fact which is presented as offering the possibility of a better lifestyle. The
latter is expressed, for example, by the location of the development in nature
(green areas, parks, lakes), and in the use of phrases inspired by ecological
discourses. However, it is clear in the advertisements that isolation means separa
tion from those considered to be socially inferior, and that the key factor to assure
this is security. This means fences and walls surrounding the condominium,
guards on duty twenty-four hours a day controlling the entrances, and an array
of facilities and services to ensure security-guardhouses with bathrooms and
telephones, double doors in the garage, and armed guards patrolling the internal
streets. Total security is crucial to the new concept of residence. Security
and control are the conditions for keeping the others out, for assuring not only
isolation but also happiness, harmony, and even freedom. In sum, to relate
security exclusively to crime is to fail to recognize all the meanings it is acquiring
in various types of environments. The new systems of security not only provide
protection from crime, but also create segregated spaces in which the practice
of exclusion is carefully and rigorously exercised.
The elaboration of an aesthetics of security and the creation of segregation
on the basis of building enclaves is a widespread process, although not necessarily
occurring elsewhere in the same obvious ways as in Sao Paulo. Fortified enclaves
are not unique to Sao Paulo. In October 1993, a large advertising campaign in
Sao Paulo elaborated on the similarities with enclaves in U.S. cities. It was a
campaign to sell the idea of an edge city (an expression used in English) as a

311
Fortified Enclaves

312

Public Culture

way of increasing the appeal and price of specific enclaves. One of the main
characters of this campaign was Joel Garreau, the U.S. journalist and author of
the book. Edge CityLife on the New Frontier. His photograph appeared in ftill
page ads in national magazines and newspapers, he came to Sao Paulo to talk to
a select group of realtors, and he was one of the main participants in a thirty-minute
television program advertising some enclaves. Garreau was helping market three
huge real estate developmentsAlphaville, Aldeia de Serra, and Tambor6
which combined closed condominiums, shopping centers, and office complexes
as if they were a piece of the first world dropped into the metropolitan region
of Sao Paulo.
The Paulista edge city was not created from scratch in 1993. The Western
zone in which these developments are located is the part of the metropolitan
region most affected by transformations in the last two decades. Until the 1970s
this area was a typical poor periphery of the metropolitan region. Since then,
real estate developers who benefited from the low price of land and facilities
offered by local administrations have invested heavily in this area. Over fifteen
years, they built large areas of walled residences adjacent to office complexes,
service centers, and shopping malls. The area had among the highest rates of
population growth in the metropolitan region during 1980-90, a period when
the growth rate in the city of Sao Paulo declined sharply. Because the new residents
are largely from the upper social groups, this area today has a concentration of
high-income inhabitants, who, before the 1980s, would have lived in central
neighborhoods (Metro 1989). In other words, this area clearly represents the
new trend of movement of wealthy residents as well as services and commerce
to the periphery of the city and to enclosed areas. The 1993 campaign used many
images already old in real estate advertisements of closed condominiums, but
gave to them a touch of novelty by baptizing its product as edge city. Its aim
was to launch new projects in the area and for this they used Garreaus expertise
on suburban development.
The television program, broadcast in Sao Paulo on Saturday, 16 October 1993,
illustrates very well the connections with the first world model as well as the
local peculiarities. The program combined scenes from U.S. edge cities (Reston,
Virginia and Columbia, Maryland) and the three developments being advertised
in S3o Paulo. In this program, Garreauspeaking in English with Portuguese
subtitlesdescribed edge cities as the predominant form of contemporary urban
growth and used Los Angeles and its multicentered form as an example. The
program had interesting differences in the way it presented Brazilian as opposed
to U.S. edge cities. Residents from enclaves in both countries were interviewed

in front of swim
luxurious and the
edge cities have
shown, and their
case, on the conti
shows a scene she
ium intercept a
walls of the condto put their arms
for a private secu:
of visitors submil
rich residents (a;
Another revealin
city. He cites as
to live in a racia
Portuguese subti
people. In Sao 1
tainly devalue th
are good insofar
of the poor) and
To use first w
common practio
situations may hi
to racial integral
distance is inde<
Moreover, the pa
that although the
in similar forms
of this form and

Attacking Modcr

The new resides

isolated office cc

10. Although nw
available social indie
recent study by Lop<

wes. One of the main

bumalist and author of
graph appeared in full
[to Sao Paulo to talk to
ipants in a thirty-minute
k helping market three
jierra, and Tambor6. and office complexes
le metropolitan region
in 1993. The Western
rt of the metropolitan
cades. Until the 1970s
in region. Since then,
1 of land and facilities
this area. Over fifteen
t to office complexes,
!g the highest rates of
10-90, a period when
fcause the new residents
has a concentration of
ihave lived in central
clearly represents the
crvices and commerce
( campaign used many
U condominiums, but
is edge city. Its aim
fcd Garreaus expertise
Jay, 16 October 1993,
model as well as the
>. edge cities (Reston,
tents being advertised
felish with Portuguese
if contemporary urban
l< as an example. The
Brazilian as opposed
Iries were interviewed

in front of swimming pools, lakes, and in green areas, emphasizing both the
luxurious and the anti-urban character of the developments. However, if the U.S.
edge cities have external walls and controls in their entrance gates, they are not
shown, and their security personnel is not visibly present either. In the Paulista
case, on the contrary, they are crucial and emphasized. At one point, the program
shows a scene shot from a helicopter: the private security personnel of a condomin
ium intercept a suspect car (a popular vehicle, a Volkswagen bus) outside the
walls of the condominiums; they physically search the occupants, who are forced
to put their arms up against the car. Although this action is completely illegal
for a private security service to perform on a public street, this together with scenes
of visitors submitting identification documents at the entrance gates, reassures the
rich residents (and spectators) that suspect (poor) people will be kept away.
Another revealing scene is an interview in English with a resident of a U.S. edge
city. He cites as one of his reasons for moving there the fact that he wanted
to live in a racially integrated community. This observation is censored in the
Portuguese subtitles which say instead that his community has many interesting
people. In Sao Paulo, the image of a racially integrated community would cer
tainly devalue the whole development. For the Paulista elites, first world models
are good insofar as they may be adapted to include outright control (especially
of the poor) and the eradication of racial and social difference.
To use first world elements in order to sell all types of commodities is a very
common practice in third world countries. However, contrasting the different
situations may be especially revealing. In this case, the need to censor a reference
to racial integration indicates that the Paulista system of social inequality and
distance is indeed obvious and that race is one of its most sensitive points.10
Moreover, the parallel between the Brazilian and the American examples suggests
that although the degree of segregation may vary in different contexts, it is present
in similar forms in both cases. It is worth then investigating the characteristics
of this form and its effects on the organization of public life.

Attacking Modern Public Space

The new residential enclaves of the upper classes, associated with shopping malls,
isolated office complexes, and other privately controlled environments represent
10.
Although many people like to think of Brazilian society as a racial democracy," any reading of
available social indicators shows pervasive discrimination against the Black population. For example, a
recent study by Lopes (1993) on poverty shows that 68% of the urban households below the indigent

313
Fortified Enclaves

314
Public Culture

a new form of organizing social differences and creating segregation in Sao Paulo
and in many other cities around the world. The characteristics of the Paulista
enclaves which make their segregationist intentions viable may be summarized
in four points. First, they use two instruments in order to create explicit separation:
on the one hand, physical dividers such as fences and walls; on the other, large
empty spaces creating distance and discouraging pedestrian circulation. Second,
as if walls and distances were not enough, separation is guaranteed by private
security systems: control and surveillance are conditions for internal social homo
geneity and isolation. Third, the enclaves are private universes turned inwards
with designs and organization making no gestures towards the street. Fourth,
the enclaves aim at being independent worlds which proscribe an exterior life,
evaluated in negative terms. The enclaves are not subordinate either to public
streets or to surrounding buildings and institutions. In other words, the relation
ship they establish with the rest of the city and its public life is one of avoidance:
they turn their backs on them. Therefore, public streets become spaces for elites
circulation by car and for poor peoples circulation by foot or public transportation.
To walk on the public street is becoming a sign of class in many cities, an activity
that the elite is abandoning. No longer using streets as spaces of sociability, the
elite now want to prevent street life from entering their enclaves.
Private enclaves and the segregation they generate deny many of the basic
elements which constituted the modem experience of public life: primacy of
streets and their openness; free circulation of crowds and vehicles; impersonal
and anonymous encounters of the pedestrian; unprogrammed public enjoyment
and congregation in streets and squares; and the presence of people from different
social backgrounds strolling and gazing at those passing by, looking at store
windows, shopping, and sitting in cafes, joining political demonstrations or using
spaces especially designed for the entertainment of the masses (promenades,
parks, stadiums, exhibitions).11 The new developments in cities such as Sao Paulo
create enclosures which contradict both the prototype of modem urban remodel
ing, that of Baron Haussmann, and basic elements of the modem conception of
public life. Haussmanns state-promoted transformations of Paris were strongly
criticized and opposed, but no one denied that the new boulevards were readily
line have a Black or Mulatto person as its head while Black or Mulatto households represent only
41% of the total urban households.
11.
Analyses of various dimensions of the modern experience of urban life are found in: Benjamin
1969; Berman 1982; Clark 1984; Harvey 1985; Holston 1989; Rabinow 1989; Schorske 1961; Sennett
1974; Vidler 1978.

appropriated by 1
life, protected by
it. Thtfldneur de
stores each becar
as Paris became
At the core of
are notions that c
the consumption
has never been ei
cities have always
and are appropru
on their social pos
western cities hav
to circulation and
attached to the ic
These modem
similar values wi
of public demonsl
included not onl;
modem city are ii
polity, consolida
and free people,
is quite radical;
social order of fe
struggles that the
have been expan
citizens has neve:
incorporation ha\
experience of cii
excluded groups
In sum, the ir
which constitute*
completely lost t

12. A powerful
Marshall (1965 [1949
and evolutionary vie\
sality of Marshalls r

negation in Sao Paulo

Tistics of the Paulista
p may be summarized
e explicit separation :
s; on the other, large
ji circulation. Second,
Siiaranteed by private
internal social homo'erses turned inwards
Is the street. Fourth,
cribe an exterior life,
mate either to public
r words, the relation; is one of avoidance:
:ome spaces for elites
public transportation,
any cities, an activity
txs of sociability, the
rclaves.
iy many of the basic
blic life: primacy of
tvehicles; impersonal
led public enjoyment
people from different
by, looking at store
raonstrations or using
aasses (promenades,
ies such as Sao Paulo
Idem urban remodellodem conception of
Paris were strongly
levards were readily

appropriated by huge numbers of people eager to enjoy both the streets public
life, protected by anonymity, and the consumption possibilities which came with
it. The fl&neur described by Baudelaire and the consumer of the new department
stores each became symbols of the modern appropriation of urban public space,
as Paris became the prototype of the modem city.
At the core of the conception of urban public life embedded in modem Paris
are notions that city space is open to be used and enjoyed by anyone, and that
the consumption society it houses may become accessible to all. Of course, this
has never been entirely the case, neither in Paris nor anywhere else, for modem
cities have always remained marked by social inequalities and spatial segregation,
and are appropriated in quite different ways by diverse social groups, depending
on their social position and power. In spite of these inequalities, however, modem
western cities have always maintained various signs of openness related especially
to circulation and consumption, which contributed to sustaining the positive value
attached to the idea of an open public space accessible to all.
These modem urban experiences were coupled with a political life in which
similar values were fostered. The modem city has been the stage for all types
of public demonstrations. In fact, the promise of incorporation into modem society
included not only the city and consumption but also the polity. Images of the
modem city are in many ways analogous to those of the modem liberal-democratic
polity, consolidated on the basis of the fiction of a social contract among equal
and free people, and which has shaped the modem political sphere. This fiction
is quite radical like that of the open cityand helped to destroy the hierarchical
social order of feudal statuses preceding it. But, clearly, it was only with severe
struggles that the definitions of those who could be considered free and equal
have been expanded. As with the open city, the polity incorporating all equal
citizens has never occurred, but its founding ideals and its promise of continuous
incorporation have retained their power for at least two centuries, shaping peoples
experience of citizenship and city life and legitimating the actions of various
excluded groups in their claims for incorporation.12
In sum, the images of openness, freedom, and possibilities of incorporation
which constituted modernity have never been completely fulfilled, but have never
completely lost their referential role either. In cities such as Sao Paulo and Los

useholds represent only

IJfe are found in: Benjamin

Schorske 1961; Sennett

12.
A powerful image of progressive incorporation is offered in the classic essay by T. H.
Marshall (1965 [1949]) on the development of citizenship. For recent critiques of Marshalls optimistic
and evolutionary view, see Hirschman 1991 and Turner 1992; Turner 1992 also criticizes the univer
sality of Marshalls model.

315
Fortified Enclaves

316
Public Culture

Angeles, however, various aspects of public experience are now contradicting

those images. One challenge to basic concepts sustaining these fictions comes
from some minority groups. They question the liberal principle of universalism,
arguing that the social contract has always been constituted on the basis of the
exclusion of some, and that the rights of minority groups can only be addressed
if approached from the perspective of difference rather than that of commonality.13
This is what we might call a positive attack on modem liberal ideals: its aim is
still to expand rights, freedom, and equality, and it searches for models which
may achieve these goals in a more effective way. However, the transformations
going on at the level of the urban environment represent an attack of a different
kind. They reject the principles of openness and equality, and take inequality
and separation as their values. While minority groups criticize the limitations of
liberal fictions in terms of the creation of equality and justice, recent urban
transformations materially build a space with opposite values. And this new type
of urban form shapes public life and everyday interactions of millions of people
around the world. In what follows I discuss in more detail the instruments used
by enclaves to produce segregation.

Modernist Instruments, Segregated Spaces

In order to achieve their goals of isolating, distancing, and selecting, the fortified
enclaves use some instruments of design which are, in fact, instruments of mod
ernist city planning and architectural design. Various effects of modernist city
planning are similar to those of the new enclaves, suggesting that we should look
at their similarities more carefully. One strikingly similar effect of both modernist
city planning and the fortified enclaves is their attack on streets as a type and
concept of public space. In Brazil, the construction of modernist Brasilia in the
late 1950s crystallized an international modernism and its transformation of public
space and relayed it to the rest of the country (see Holston 1989). In modernist
Brasilia as in new parts of Sao Paulo and Los Angeles, pedestrians and anonymous
interactions in public life which marked modem Paris tend to be eliminated.
However, if the results tend to be the same, the original projects of modernism
and current enclosures are radically different. It is worth, then, investigating how
such different projects ended up producing similar effects.
13.
Sec, for example, the feminist critique of the social contract (Pateman 1988) and of the legal
understanding of equality as sameness (Eisenstein 1988).

Modernist arc
criticism of indus
the radical remo
difference and cr
the avant-garde
criticism of capit
street as a condui
fail to accommo
architecture attac
of the public and
(Holston 1989:1(
domains is best i
spaces including
ings frames and
architecture invc
been the basis fc
b.c. In the mode
sculptural figure:
planning aims at
public and priva
tural, and all spa
nating between
Modernist cit
state-sponsored ]
sal rationalist cit
recreational, tra
plete embodimei
city planning. T1
of the planners
its most egalitar
adaptation, becc
ence. Streets on
internalization c
and rich residei
social separatioi
only in cities su
In the new fort
produce a total

nare now contradicting

<g these fictions comes
nciple of universalism,
ted on the basis of the
can only be addressed
. that of commonality.13
beral ideals: its aim is
:hes for models which
sr, the transformations
an attack of a different
y, and take inequality
icize the limitations of
| justice, recent urban
ues. And this new type
Is of millions of people
1 the instruments used

selecting, the fortified

t, instruments of modsets of modernist city

ig that we should look
Sect of both modernist
streets as a type and
demist Brasilia in the
information of public
n 1989). In modernist
itrians and anonymous
;nd to be eliminated,
rejects of modernism
len, investigating how

tmn 1988) and of the legal

Modernist architecture and city planning were elaborated on the basis of a

criticism of industrial cities and societies and intended to transform them through
the radical remodeling of space. Their utopia was clear: the erasure of social
difference and creation of equality in the rational city of the future mastered by
the avant-garde architect. Modernist attacks on the streets were central to its
criticism of capitalism and its project of subversion. They perceived the corridor
street as a conduit of disease and as an impediment to progress, because it would
fail to accommodate the needs of the new machine age. Moreover, modernist
architecture attacks the street because it constitutes an architectural organization
of the public and private domains of social life that modernism seeks to overturn
(Holston 1989:103). In capitalist cities, the organization of the public and private
domains is best expressed in the corridor street and its related system of public
spaces including sidewalks and squares: a solid mass of contiguous private build
ings frames and contains the void of public streets. Modernist planning and
architecture inverted these solid-void/figure-ground relationships which have
been the basis for the physical structure of Western cities since the fifth century
b.c. In the modernist city, streets appear as continuous voids and buildings as
sculptural figures (p. 125). By subverting the old code of urban order, modernist
planning aims at and succeeds in erasing the representational distinction between
public and private. When all buildings-banks, offices, apartments-are sculp
tural, and all spaces are nonfigural, the old architectural convention for discrimi
nating between the public and the private is effectively invalidated (p. 136).
Modernist city planning aspired to transform the city into a single homogeneous
state-sponsored public domain, to eliminate differences in order to create a univer
sal rationalist city divided into functional sectors such as residential, employment,
recreational, transportation, administrative, and civic. Brasilia is the most com
plete embodiment of both the new type of city and public life created by modernist
city planning. This new type of city space, however, turned out to be the opposite
of the planners intentions. Brasilia is today Brazils most segregated city, not
its most egalitarian. Ironically, the instruments of modernist planning, with little
adaptation, become perfect instruments to produce inequality, not to erase differ
ence. Streets only for vehicular traffic, the absence of sidewalks, enclosure and
internalization of shopping areas, and spatial voids isolating sculptural buildings
and rich residential areas are great instruments for generating and maintaining
social separations. These modernist creations radically transform public life not
only in cities such as Brasilia, but in other contexts and with different intentions.
In the new fortified enclaves they are used not to destroy private spaces and
produce a total unified public, but to destroy public spaces. Their objective is

317
Fortified Enclaves

to enlarge specific private domains so that they will fulfill public functions, but
in a segregated way.
Contemporary fortified enclaves use basically modernist instruments of plan
ning with some notable adaptations. First, the surrounding walls: unlike in mod
ernist planning, such as for Brasilia, where the residential areas were to have
no fences or walls but only to be delimited by expressways, in Sao Paulo the
walls are necessary to demarcate the private universes. However, this demarcation
of private property is not supposed to create the same type of (nonmodernist)
public space that characterizes the industrial city. Because the private universes
are kept apart by voids (as in modernist design), they no longer generate street
corridors. Moreover, pedestrian circulation is discouraged and shopping areas
are kept away from the streets, again as in modernist design. The second adapta
tion occurs in the materials and forms of individual buildings. Here there are
two possibilities. On the one hand, buildings may completely ignore the exterior
walls, treating facades as their backs. On the other, plain modernist facades may
be eliminated in favor of ornament, irregularity, and ostentatious materials which
display the individuality and status of their owners. These buildings reject the
glass and transparency of modernism and their disclosure of private life. In
other words, internalization, privacy, and individuality are enhanced. Finally,
sophisticated technologies of security assure the exclusivity of the already isolated
buildings.
Analyzing what is used from modernist architecture and city planning and
what is transformed in the new urban form generated by the private enclaves,
one arrives at a clear conclusion: the devices which have been maintained are
those that destroy modem public space and social life (socially dead streets trans
formed into highways, sculptural buildings separated by voids and disregarding
street alignments, enclaves turned inside); the devices transformed or abandoned
are those intended to create equality, transparency, and a new public sphere (glass
facades, uniformity of design, absence of material delimitations such as walls
and fences). Instead of creating a space in which the distinctions between public
and private disappear-making all space public as the modernists intended-the
enclaves use modernist conventions to create spaces in which the private quality
is enhanced beyond any doubt and in which the public, a shapeless void treated
as residual, is deemed irrelevant. This was exactly the fate of modernist architec
ture and its all public space in Brasilia, a perversion of initial premises and
intentions. The situation is just the opposite with the closed condominiums and
other fortified enclaves of the 1980s and 1990s. Their aim is to segregate and
to change the character of public life by bringing to private spaces constructed

as socially homog
enacted in public
Today, in citie
freedom of circul
aiming at erasing
urban design has
delineated privatt
external overall <
organization. Tht
a total order kept
of incorporation,
radical inequaliti
fact erased diffen
tectural conventic
worlds meet as i
different spaces.
In sum, in a ci
goes a deep trans
and enclaves, brc
armed guards, gu
is increasingly ab
and shopping in
spaces for the ri<
those who canno
this new type of
some of its consi

Sao Paulo, Los Ai

Compared to Sac
structure.14 SaoF
hoods concentrat
of the corridor st
14. It is not my ir
I will only point out
allow me to raise que
For analyses of Los

ipublic functions, but

i instruments

of planJvalis: unlike in mod

i' areas were to have
ys, in Sao Paulo the
ver, this demarcation
e of (nonmodernist)
he private universes
>nger generate street
and shopping areas
The second adaptangs. Here there are
y ignore the exterior
bdemist facades may
ious materials which
I buildings reject the
J of private life. In
enhanced. Finally,
|f the already isolated
d city planning and
le private enclaves,
>een maintained are
y dead streets transds and disregarding
>rmed or abandoned
public sphere (glass
lions such as walls
ions between public
mists intended-the
1 the private quality
apeless void treated
modernist architecnitial premises and
condominiums and
is to segregate and
spaces constructed

as socially homogeneous environments those activities which had been previously

enacted in public spaces.
Today, in cities such as SHo Paulo we find neither gestures toward openness and
freedom of circulation regardless of differences, nor a technocratic universalism
aiming at erasing differences. Rather, we find a city space whose old modem
urban design has been fragmented by the insertion of independent and welldelineated private enclaves (of modernist design) which pay no attention to an
external overall ordination and which are totally focused on their own internal
organization. The fortified fragments are no longer meant to be subordinated to
a total order kept together by ideologies of openness, commonality, or promises
of incorporation. Heterogeneity is to be taken more seriously: fragments express
radical inequalities, not simple differences. Stripped of the elements which in
fact erased differences such as uniform and transparent facades, modernist archi
tectural conventions used by the enclaves are helping to insure that different social
worlds meet as infrequently as possible in city space, i.e., that they belong to
different spaces.
In sum, in a city of walls and enclaves such as Sao Paulo, public space under
goes a deep transformation. Felt as more dangerous, fractured by the new voids
and enclaves, broken in its old alignments, privatized with chains closing streets,
armed guards, guard dogs, guardhouses, walled parks, public space in Sao Paulo
is increasingly abandoned to those who do not have a chance of living, working,
and shopping in the new private, internalized, and fortified enclaves. As the
spaces for the rich are enclosed and turned inside, the outside space is left for
those who cannot afford to go in. A comparison with Los Angeles shows that
this new type of segregation is not Sfio Paulos exclusive creation and suggests
some of its consequences for the transformation of the public sphere.

Sao Paulo, Los Angeles

Compared to Sao Paulo, Los Angeles has a more fragmented and disperse urban
structure.14 Sao Paulo still has a vivid downtown area and some central neighbor
hoods concentrating commerce and office activities which are shaped on the model
of the corridor street and which, in spite of all transformations, are still crowded
14.
It is not my intention to give a detailed account of Los Angeless recent pattern of urbanization.
I will only point out some of its characteristics which, by comparison with SSo Paulos process,
allow me to raise questions about new forms of social segregation which seem to be quite generalized.
For analyses of Los Angeles, see Banham 1971, Davis 1990, Soja 1989 and 1992.

319
Fortified Enclaves

320
Public Culture

during the day. Contemporary Los Angeles is polynucleated and decentralized

(Soja 1989:208). And its renovated downtown, one of the citys economic and
financial centers, does not have much street life: peoples activities are contained
in the corporate buildings and their under- and overpass connections to shopping,
restaurants, and hotels.15 Sao Paulos process of urban fragmentation by the con
struction of enclaves is more recent than Los Angeless, but it has already changed
the peripheral zones and the distribution of wealth and economic functions in
ways similar to that of the metropolitan region of Los Angeles. According to Soja
(1989), the latter is a multicentered region marked by a peripheral urbanization,
which is created by the expansion of high-technological, post-fordist industrializa
tion, and marked by the presence of high-income residential developments, huge
regional shopping centers, programmed environments for leisure (theme parks,
Disneyland), links to major universities and the Department of Defense, and
various enclaves of cheap labor, mostly immigrants. Although Sao Paulo lacks
the high-technology industries found in Los Angeles, its tertiarization and distri
bution of services and commerce are starting to be organized according to the
Los Angeles pattern.
Although we may say that Sao Paulo expresses Los Angeless process of
economic transformation and urban dispersion in a less explicit form, it is more
explicit and exaggerated in the creation of separation and in the use of security
procedures. Where rich neighborhoods such as Morumbi use high walls, iron
fences, and armed guards, the West Side of Los Angeles uses mostly electronic
alarms and small signs announcing Armed Response. While Sao Paulos elites
clearly appropriate public spacesclosing public streets with chains and all sorts
of physical obstacles, installing private armed guards to control circulation
Los Angeles elites still show more respect for public streets. However, walled
communities appropriating public streets are already appearing in Los Angeles
and one can wonder if its more discrete pattern of separation and of surveillance
is not in part associated with the fact that the poor are far from the West Side,
while in Morumbi they live beside the enclaves. Another reason must surely be
the fact that the Los Angeles Police Department-although considered one of
the most biased and violent of the United States-still appears very effective and
nonviolent if compared to Sao Paulos police (see Caldeira n.d.a., chapter 4).
Sao Paulos upper classes explicitly rely on the services of an army of domestic
servants and do not feel ashamed to transform the utilization of these services
15.
See Davis 1991 and Soja 1989 on the importance of downtown Los Angeles in the structuring
of the region.

into status symbols

for enclaves. In V
services of immigi
status associated v*
ment. In Sao Pauli
policies to help se
portant social mov
sive neighborhood
lobby for zoning r
hoods now enjoy
Despite the ma
both Los Angeles
technologies of se
social segregation
ments which they
space to the poor
these common chi
and architects in >
fended and theori
dogma in schools <
tions is recent an
increasing rates of
and security devic
not find either acac
the debate has air
and the praise of
One person vc
enclaves is Charle
in relation to a d
Angeless main pr
ethnic strife and <
he considers this
diagnosis of the e
tension increases,
resort to more div<
of security device:
how this neeessir
hard-edged matei

cd and decentralized
city's economic and
ttivities are contained
loections to shopping,
Dentation by the con
it has already changed
jjonomic functions in
|5S. According to Soja
pheral urbanization,
fordist industrializadevelopments, huge
eisure (theme parks,
tent of Defense, and
Jugh Sao Paulo lacks
darization and distried according to the
Angeless process of
it form, it is more
the use of security
high walls, iron
mostly electronic
le Sao Paulos elites
1 chains and all sorts
ontrol circulation
s. However, walled
ring in Los Angeles
1 and of surveillance
from the West Side,
ason must surely be
l considered one of
Its very effective and
\ n.d.a., chapter 4).
tn army of domestic
M of these services
tageles in the structuring

into status symbols, which in turn are incorporated in newspaper advertisements

for enclaves. In West Los Angeles, although the domestic dependence on the
services of immigrant maids, nannies, and gardeners seems to be increasing, the
status associated with employing them has not yet become a matter for advertise
ment. In Sao Paulo, where the local government has been efficient in approving
policies to help segregation, upper-class residents have not yet started any im
portant social movement for this purpose. But in Los Angeles residents of expen
sive neighborhoods have been organizing powerful homeowner associations to
lobby for zoning regulations which would maintain the isolation their neighbor
hoods now enjoy (Davis 1990, chapter 3).
Despite the many differences between the two cases, it is also clear that in
both Los Angeles and Sao Paulo conventions of modernist city planning and
technologies of security are being used to create new forms of urban space and
social segregation. In both cities, the elites are retreating to privatized environ
ments which they increasingly control and are abandoning earlier types of urban
space to the poor and their internal antagonisms. As might be expected given
these common characteristics, in both cities we find debates involving planners
and architects in which the new enclaves are frequently criticized, but also de
fended and theorized. In Sao Paulo, where modernism has been the dominant
dogma in schools of architecture up to the present, the defense of walled construc
tions is recent and timid, using as arguments only practical reasons such as
increasing rates of crime and of homelessness. Architects tend to talk about walls
and security devices as an unavoidable evil. They talk to the press, but I could
not find either academic articles or books on the subject. In Los Angeles, however,
the debate has already generated an important literature and both the criticism
and the praise of defensible architecture are already quite elaborated.
One person voicing the defense of the architectural style found in the new
enclaves is Charles Jencks. He analyzes recent trends in Los Angeles architecture
in relation to a diagnosis of the citys social configuration. In his view, Los
Angeless main problem is its heterogeneity, which inevitably generates chronic
ethnic strife and explains episodes such as the 1992 uprising (1993:88). Since
he considers this heterogeneity as constitutive of L.A.s reality, and since his
diagnosis of the economic situation is pessimistic, his expectation is that ethnic
tension increases, that the environment becomes more defensive, and that people
resort to more diverse and nastier measures of protection. Jencks sees the adoption
of security devices as inevitable and as a matter of realism. Moreover, he discusses
how this necessity is being transformed into art by styles which metamorphose
hard-edged materials needed for security into ambiguous signs of inventive

321
Fortlfisd Enclaves

beauty and keep out (1993:89), and which design fagades with their backs to
the street, camouflaging the contents of the houses. For him, the response to
ethnic strife is defensible architecture and riot realism (1993:89). The realism
lies in architects looking at the dark side of division, conflict, and decay, and
represent[ing] some unwelcome truths (1993:91). Among the latter is the fact
that heterogeneity and strife are here to stay, that the promises of the melting
pot can no longer be fulfilled. In this context, boundaries would have to be both
clearer and more defended.
Architecturally it [Los Angeles] will have to learn the lessons of Gehrys aesthetic and en-formality: how to turn unpleasant necessities such
as chain-link fence into amusing and ambiguous signs of welcome/keep
out, beauty/defensive space. . . . Defensible architecture, however re
grettable as a social tactic, also protects the rights of individuals and
threatened groups. (Jencks 1993:93)
Jencks targets ethnic heterogeneity as the reason for Los Angeless social
conflicts and sees separation as a solution. He is not bothered by the fact that
the intervention of architects and planners in L. A.s urban environment reinforces
social inequality and spatial segregation. He also does not interrogate the conse
quences of these creations for public space and political relationships. In fact,
his admiration of the backside-to-the-street solution indicates a lack of concern
with the maintenance of public streets as spaces which embed the values of
openness and conviviality of the heterogeneous masses.
But Los Angeless defensible architecture also has its critics, and the most
famous of them is Mike Davis, whose analysis I find illuminating, especially for
thinking about the transformations in the public sphere. For Davis (1990, 1991,
1993), social inequality and spatial segregation are central characteristics of Los
Angeles, and his expression, Fortress L. A., refers to the type of space being
presently created in the city.
Welcome to post-liberal Los Angeles, where the defense of luxury life
styles is translated into a proliferation of new repressions in space and
movement, undergirded by the ubiquitous armed response. This obses
sion with physical security systems, and, collaterally, with the architec
tural policing of social boundaries, has become a Zeitgeist of urban re
structuring, a master narrative in the emerging built environment of the
1990s. We live in fortress cities brutally divided between fortified
cells of affluent society and places of terror where the police battle
the criminalized poor. (Davis 1990:223-24)

i:es with their backs to

Hum, the response to
$3:89). The realism
inflict, and decay, and
jg the latter is the fact
bmises of the melting
Would have to be both

lessons of Gehnecessities such

of welcome/keep
ire, however rendividuals and

Los Angeless social

iered by the fact that
ivixonment reinforces
interrogate the conseelationships. In fact,
tes a lack of concern
embed the values of
critics, and the most
nating, especially for
r Davis (1990, 1991,
iharacteristics of Los
e type of space being

>e of luxury lifens in space and

rose. This obsesvith the architec5ist of urban reSvironment of the
^een fortified
ae police battle

For Davis, the increasingly segregated and privatized Los Angeles is the result
of a clear master plan of post-liberal (i.e., Reagan-Bush Republican) elites, a
theme he reiterates in his analysis of the 1992 riots (Davis 1993). To talk of
contemporary Los Angeles is for him to talk of a new class war at the level of
the built environment and to demonstrate that urban form is indeed following
a repressive function in the political furrows of the Reagan-Bush era. Los Angeles,
in its prefigurative mode, offers an especially disquieting catalogue of the emer
gent liaisons between architecture and the American police state (Davis 1990:
228).
Daviss writing is marked by an indignation fully supported by his wealth of
evidence concerning Los Angeles. Nevertheless, sometimes he tends to collapse
complex social processes into a simplified scenario of warfare which his own
rich description defies. Despite this tendency to look at social reality as the direct
product of elite intentions, Davis elaborates a remarkable critique of social and
spatial segregation, and associates the emerging urban configuration with the
crucial themes of social inequality and political options. For him, not only is
there nothing inevitable about fortress architecture, but also it has deep conse
quences for the way in which the public space and public interactions are shaped.
My analysis of Sao Paulos enclaves coincides with Daviss analysis of Los
Angeles as far as the issue of the public space is concerned. It is clear in both
cases that the public order created by private enclaves of the defensible style
has inequalities, isolation, and fragmentation as starting points. In this context,
the fiction of the overall social contract and the ideals of universal rights and
equality which legitimated the modem conception of public space vanish. We
should ask, then, if there is already another political fiction organizing inequalities
and differences at the societal level, and how to best conceive this new configura
tion as the old modem model loses its explanatory value. If social differences
are brought to the center of the scene instead of being put aside by universalistic
claims, then what kind of model for the public realm can we maintain? What
kind of polity will correspond to the new fragmented public sphere? Is democracy
still possible in this new public sphere?

Public Sphere: Inequalities and Boundaries

People attach meanings to the spaces where they live in flexible and varying
ways and the factors influencing these readings and uses are endless.16 However,
cities are also material spaces with relative stability and rigidity that shape and
16. On this theme, see de Certeau 1984, part 3.

323
Fortified Enclaves

324
Public Culture

bound peoples lives and determine the types of encounters possible in public
space. When walls are built up, they form the stage for public life regardless of
the meanings people attach to them and regardless of the multiple tactics of
resistance people use to appropriate urban space.
In this essay, I have been arguing that in cities where fortified enclaves produce
spatial segregation, social inequalities become quite explicit. I have also been
arguing that in these cities, residents everyday interactions with people from
other social groups diminish substantially, and public encounters primarily occur
inside of protected and relatively homogeneous groups. In the materiality of
segregated spaces, in peoples everyday trajectories, in their uses of public trans
portation, in their appropriations of streets and parks, and in their constructions
of walls and defensive facades, social boundaries are rigidly constructed. Their
crossing is under surveillance. When boundaries are crossed in this type of city,
there is aggression, fear, and a feeling of unprotectedness; in a word, there is
suspicion and danger. Residents from all social groups have a sense of exclusion
and restriction. For some, the feeling of exclusion is obvious as they are denied
access to various areas and are restricted to others. Affluent people who inhabit
exclusive enclaves also feel restricted; their feelings of fear keep them away from
regions and people that their mental maps of the city identify as dangerous.
Contemporary urban segregation is complementary to the issue of urban vio
lence. On the one hand, the fear of crime is used to legitimate increasing measures
of security and surveillance. On the other, the proliferation of everyday talk
about crime becomes the context in which residents generate stereotypes as they
label different social groups as dangerous and therefore as people to be feared
and avoided. Everyday discussions about crime create rigid symbolic differences
between social groups as they tend to align them either with good or with evil.
In this sense, they contribute to a construction of inflexible separations in a way
analogous to city walls. Both enforce ungiving boundaries. In sum, one of the
consequences of living in cities segregated by enclaves is that while heterogeneous
contacts diminish, social differences are more rigidly perceived and proximity
with people from different groups considered as dangerous, thus emphasizing
inequality and distance.
Nevertheless, the urban environment is not the only basis of peoples experi
ences of social differences. If fact, there are other arenas in which differences
tend to be experienced in almost opposite ways, offering an important counterpoint
to the experience of the urban environment. This is the case of the perceptions
of social difference forged through the intensification of communication networks
and mass media (international news, documentaries about all types of lives and

experiences), throu;
through the consump
contexts, boundaries
and are constantly cr
their own.
Thus, the p>ercep
cities may occur in
their appropriation I
those of emerging ui
nify social differenc
of experience may l
Both types of expei
consequences for pu
the softening of boi
liberal-democratic p
The tamed differenideals, and in their \
new urban morphok
and inscribe a new s
and its democratic
areas and when difl
references to a univ
longer possible, eve
restriction for publ:
defensible architect
venting it by makir
commonalities.
Among the cond
those from differen
rights. If this is tru
by fortified enclave;
to democracy. Rath
belong to separate i
not strengthen citizi
effect does not depe
of those in power, s
social logic.

is possible in public
blic life regardless of
i multiple tactics of
I

jified enclaves produce

jcit. I have also been
jus with people from
nters primarily occur
in the materiality of
* uses of public trans
in their constructions
ly constructed. Their
:d in this type of city,
; in a word, there is
j a sense of exclusion
us as they are denied
it people who inhabit
<eep them away from
dfy as dangerous.
it issue of urban vio: increasing measures
ion of everyday talk
e stereotypes as they
people to be feared
symbolic differences
h good or with evil,
separations in a way
. In sum, one of the
while heterogeneous
eived and proximity
is, thus emphasizing
is of peoples experitin which differences
iportant counterpoint
se of the perceptions
munication networks
Ml types of lives and

experiences), through mass movements of populations, through tourism, or

through the consumption of ethnic products (food, clothes, films, music). In these Fortified Enclaves
contexts, boundaries between different social universes become more permeable
and are constantly crossed as people have access to worlds which are not originally
their own.
Thus, the perception and experience of social differences in contemporary
cities may occur in quite distinct ways. Some tame social differences, allowing
their appropriation by various types of consumers. Other experiences, such as
those of emerging urban environments, characterized by fear and violence, mag
nify social differences and maintain distance and separateness. If the first type
of experience may blur boundaries, the second type explicitly elaborates them.
Both types of experience constitute the contemporary public sphere but their
consequences for public and political life are radically distinct. On the one hand,
the softening of boundaries may still be related to the ideals of equality of the
liberal-democratic polity and may serve as the basis of claims of incorporation.
The tamed differences produced to be consumed do not threaten universalist
ideals, and in their peculiar way put people into contact. On the other hand, the
new urban morphologies of fear give new forms to inequality, keep groups apart,
and inscribe a new sociability which runs against the ideals of the modem public
and its democratic freedoms. When some people are denied access to certain
areas and when different groups are not supposed to interact in public space,
references to a universal principle of equality and freedom for social life are no
longer possible, even as fiction. The consequences of the new separateness and
restriction for public life are serious: contrary to what Jencks thinks (1993),
defensible architecture and planning may only promote conflict instead of pre
venting it by making clear the extension of social inequalities and the lack of
commonalities.
Among the conditions necessary for democracy is that people acknowledge
those from different social groups as cocitizens, i.e., as people having similar
rights. If this is true, it is clear that contemporary cities which are segregated
by fortified enclaves are not environments which generate conditions conducive
to democracy. Rather, they foster inequality and the sense that different groups
belong to separate universes and have irreconcilable claims. Cities of walls do
not strengthen citizenship but rather contribute to its corrosion. Moreover, this
effect does not depend either on the type of political regime or on the intentions
of those in power, since the architecture of the enclaves entails by itself a certain
social logic.

325

326
Public Culture

Discussions about cities such as Los Angeles, London, or Paris, that is, cities
populated by people from the most diverse cultural origins, commonly invoke
the theme of the limits of modem citizenship based on affiliation to a nation-state.
One might rethink the parameters of citizenship in those cities and suggest that
the criterion for participation in political life could be local residence rather
than national citizenship. Moreover, it would be possible to argue that this local
participation is increasingly necessary to make those cities liveable and to improve
the quality of life of the impoverished population, increasingly consisting of
immigrants. The contrast between this alternative political vision and the reality
of fortified cities allows for at least two conclusions, one pessimistic and one
more optimistic.
The pessimistic would say that the direction of new segregation and the exten
sion of social separation already achieved would make impossible the engagement
of a variety of social groups in a political life in which common goals and solutions
would have to be negotiated. In this view, citizenship in cities of walls is meaning
less. The optimistic interpretation, however, would consider that the change in
the criteria for admission to political life, and the consequent change in status
of a considerable part of the population would generate a wider engagement in
the search for solutions to common problems and would potentially bridge some
distances. There are many reasons to be suspicious of such optimism; studies
of homeowner associations in Los Angeles remind us how local democracy may
be used as an instrument of segregation (Davis 1990, chapter 3). However, the
boom of social movements in Sao Paulo after the mid-1970s suggests a cautious
optimism. Where excluded residents discover that they have rights to the city,
they manage to transform their neighborhoods and to improve the quality of their
lives. That fortified enclaves in part counteracted this process should not make
us abandon this qualified optimism. The walls were not able to totally obstruct
the exercise of citizenship, and poor residents continue to expand their rights.

teaches in the Departments of Anthropology at the University

of California, Irvine and at Unicamp (State University of Campinas, Sao Paulo).
Her book, City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in Sdo Paulo is
forthcoming from the University of California Press. Her current research focuses
on the constitution and expansion of citizenship rights from a comparative perspec
tive, and on the association of these processes with notions of the body and of
racial relations.
Teresa P. R. Caldeira

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*ns, commonly invoke
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iveable and to improve
sasingly consisting of
vision and the reality
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327

egation and the exten

sible the engagement
non goals and solutions
es of walls is meaningder that the change in
juent change in status
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>tentially bridge some
ich optimism; studies
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Fortified Enclaves

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rban terrori
riots, religii
racist and xe
new, or renewed s
At the same time, t
witness to a gap b
their representatioi
has no necessary lx
would be secondar
constant correspon

Collective Violence

In some cases, ther

and the direct exper
rineau, or Renaud E

1. Hugues Lagrang
Sociologie 15 (1984): e
1988)," in Nonna Maye
37-62. Renaud Dulong
1992).

Public Culture 1996, 8: 3:

1996 by The University
0899-2363/96/0802-0007$